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Originally posted by: getter77
Kairon: Sorry if I come across as unclear. Lemme see:
-According to everywhere I've seen that tracks videogames on the net....EVERYWHERE pretty much is spouting the Wii to launch between 200-300. I think we had a thread on one of the sources, an EGM leak..awhile back here? My contention is that those singing praise from the rafters regarding this speculated price are doing so solely based upon the competition aspect with the PS3 price and fanboys....NOT Nintendo's actual philosophy espoused for this "new" generation of gaming they are leading.
-Nintendo hasn't said, although there was a recent interview where a rep said something allong the lines of "wouldn't be much more expensive than out previous console(s)" (rough quote). Nintendo suddenly got QUIET right after the PS3 price and feature announcement....understandably so given in part of what went down. I worry that they may think they can "get away" with charging more for the Wii than is sensible based on the price of their supposed "non-competition".
-To me, releasing a new console....yet counting not on the release---but rather a HOPEFUL price drop in a year's time to ACTUALLY start to achieve goals borders on being foolhardy. The future is entirely unstable in regards to the consumer market/demands. Thus, best foot forward is the best possibility lest nobody is in a position to care/manage in the future on it. You might make less initial per console unit profit, but you will surely secure more overall profit throughout the console's lifespan.
-The notion of nongamers being the disposable trendy crowd in part is well made. However, let's assume, as is reality, that MANY more people are of much less money to throw around at entertainment amenities. Especially on the international scale. Those same people, by that minding, would be no more likely to pick up a Wii than to get any of the other systems since cost isn't really an object compared to their other indulgences. Let's be frank: Sony says poor peope should need toil extra for some videogame entertainment, Nintendo "publicly" begs to differ. Nintendo NEEDS to come to bat on that though. A lower than "usual business" console price is an extended hand towards all the people who simply can't/won't manage along the "traditional" price threshold lines for videogames that have cropped up over the years. As well as those that were once inclined or able to....but are currently strapped/hesitant for gaming.
Am I making any more sense at all?
You're making sense, but I'm not convinced that a low price is absolutely necessary at launch. Everything will sell out at launch, so a low price is very impractical because non-gamers will be unable to get the system. Then they could forget about the system later on when stock DOES become available.
I mean, look at the X360. Who cares about it now? At launch it was all the rage, but now that it's in stock there's no real hype to drive people to stores.
Also, non-gamers and casual-casuals will absolutely NOT hear about the Wii until at least 6 months after launch. Only hardcores and attentive casuals will be grabbed initially no matter what you do, and it will take 6 months or a year for the Wii to actually enter the minds of casuals and non-gamers via word-of-mouth and other viral methods.
Finally, let's look at every blue-ocean casual successes: Titanic and Brain Age.
Titanic was big not because it had a decent launch, but because people heard about it through word of mouth and these people went to see the movie in theatres 4-6 months AFTER it came out. A large and long-term theatre time frame allowed for the 6-month stretch of casual-movie-goers to experience and drive the film to $900 million domestic intake. Titanic demonstrates that you will have people who hear about it 6 months later despite the product being huge on day 1. Thankfully, Titanic as a movie didn't really need to worry about whether it was in-stock or not.
And look at Brain Age. It was priced casually at the get-go, yes, but it is STILL on the top 10 JPN charts months and months after its release. People are still only hearing about it now, months after launch, and it is these people, not the early-adopters, who are actually being drawn in from the low price, in my opinion.
Now that I've said all that, I'm going to completely reverse my opinion. You are still reading right? LOL. After all my babble I've decided that I agree with you!
I do believe that a mass market price from the get-go could be VERY important and should be attempted BECAUSE then this mass market price will become part of the word-of-mouth together with the new control method, and paired together, it will offer a much more enticing aspect for people to find, play, and buy.
After all, it certainly didn't hurt Brain Age that you could tell adults that the game only cost $20, in fact this made the game more accessible not at the point of purchase, but at the point of word-of-mouth. The same for Titanic, $9 is doable and mass market, there's no barrier to make someone say "that sounds good, but it's too expensive." If the Wii launched Mass Market from the get-go, then people would say instead "That sounds exciting, AND it's so cheap! Double-score!"
... well, they wouldn't say EXACTLY that...but....yeah.
~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com 
Topic: Temptation of Greed for Wii? (Read 13382 times)
